THE word out of Washington this week is that the Guam buildup is still on “pause,” due to Senate Armed Service Chair Carl Levin’s continued intransigence.

During a recent Senate hearing, Levin described the recent changes in the Japan realignment agreement as still “inadequate,” and warned he would continue to work for a freeze in Guam buildup funding until his concerns are met.

This dashed hopes that the buildup was not just “on” again, but that it would proceed at an accelerated pace.

Still, many analysts predict that the buildup would come at a faster pace, for it is now the U.S. government itself which is pushing for the relocation of the Marines to Guam.

The Obama administration’s budgetary problems and the presidential election are ensuring that the “new” buildup will be given priority, just in time to appease Obama’s budget-cutting conservative opponents and serve as a feather in the President’s cap for his coming re-election bid.

Of course, it is now also a smaller buildup. But hey, at least the buildup wasn’t totally scrapped – and many are saying the reduced buildup may even be better and more manageable for Guam.

This “new” buildup also gives everyone a chance to start all over again and do things right after the blunders of the “old” buildup. The military, especially, seems to have taken this to heart, as it avoided the controversy of last year’s Pågat debacle by making sure that everyone is consulted in the new draft environmental impact statement for the Marine firing range.

One reason why the Guam buildup could be expected to move at a faster velocity is because of its delinking from the Futenma relocation. The U.S. government obviously couldn't afford to wait for the constant indecision of the Japanese side on the Futenma issue.

Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat and now director of research at the Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News that Futenma is virtually impossible to move because of the complexities of the local politics in Japan.

But with the delinking of the Marines’ relocation from the Futenma issue, the pressure is now on the Okinawans. In the past, the linkage of the Marines’ transfer to Futenma served as a bargaining chip for the Okinawans to hasten the closure of Futenma. Now that the two issues have been separated, the Okinawans no longer have that leverage; and many fear the Futenma issue may drag on for years, even decades, before it is transferred – if it is transferred at all.

A status quo on the Futenma issue would sit just fine with the United States. Remember, it has always been the Japanese who wanted the U.S. military out of Okinawa. For American planners, the U.S. military presence in Okinawa, especially Futenma, is still a vital cog of its defense posture in the region. No wonder the Marines still have to issue their preferred “force posture” as is now required by the U.S. Senate. For the American commanders, the current setup may be the closest to the ideal defense deployment.

As for us here on Guam, we really need buildup revenues to come in sooner. After borrowing from the bond market last year to pay for overdue tax refunds, and another round of bond borrowings planned, GovGuam has just about hit its debt ceiling. Revenues from buildup-related activities are even more crucial now, with the tourism industry not yet fully recovered and future debt borrowings highly unlikely.

But the smaller number of Marines coming to Guam will significantly lessen the Section 30 money that will be forthcoming, despite DOD’s assurances this week that “rotational” Marines will still be subject to Section 30. The scale of construction projects is also expected to be lower, resulting in fewer construction projects and thus a limited amount of new jobs.

This is the reason why our leaders should forget politics and close ranks to make sure we get what is due us from the federal government.

We should make sure there are no “holes” in the remaining Section 30 remittances that we stand to make, and we should try to get as much buildup-related funding as we can from the federal government.